Why Baby Boomers Will Have a Troubled Retirement

Amongst people under the age of 35 in America, a predominant view that I see emerging is how the Baby Boom generation in the US (born 1946-64) is consuming the future of the younger generation in an attempt to finance an opulent retirement. While this may indeed be the political goal of at least some Boomers and the core mission of many retiree organizations, the fiscal situation in the US is far worse for the Boomers than they realize, even for those who don't seek to extract from younger people.

Boomers and Entitlements : While the first Baby Boomer turned 65 in 2011, the median Boomer (born in 1955) turns 65 in 2020, and the last ones turn 65 in 2029, which indicates that their big harvesting of Social Security and Medicare from the government has not even begun yet. Given rising life expectancies, the peak years of Boomer harvesting will be 2015-2035 or so, which means that a huge level of withdrawals are anticipated for this 20-year window.

But alas, someone got to the goodies first. This chart from Carpe Diem shows how US Federal Debt went from 65% of GDP in 2008 to almost 100% today. That 35-point rise was supposed to be consumed by Boomers seeking to finance their retirement, but now, with debt already so high well before Boomers can get their, the future payouts to Boomers have been crowded out. There is certainly no room for another 35-point rise in Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP (credit downgrades and a capital exodus would happen long before debt could ever reach 135% of GDP), and given that the big debt spike began in 2009, it appears that President Obama and the Democrat Senate have already expended the funds that were supposed to sustain the Boomers.

As debt thresholds that were not meant to be reached until many Boomers were well into their retirement have been pierced ahead of schedule, the squeeze will cause some very ugly intra-Boomer conflicts as each group seeks to secure a portion of the diminished pie, which we will examine later in the article.

Boomers and Home Equity : But it gets worse for the Boomers, even for those who have resources that makes them less dependent on Social Security. The housing market has been in a slump (which I predicted at the very height of the boom in April 2006), and this will, at best, tread water for the next several years. Ultra-low mortgage rates have merely arrested a further decline, and even that deep well has been fully consumed (chart from Calculated Risk, click to enlarge).

While some Baby Boomers believe they still may have enough time to recoup substantial home equity with which they may seek to finance a portion of their retirement, in order to retain their equity, they need a steady flow of first-time buyers to enter the housing market,in numbers greater than the rate at which retiring Boomers want to sell.

Who are these new first-time buyers? Why, the endless supply of young people starting their careers and forming families, of course. But alas; the many members of this generation, born after 1990, will not be in any position to buy the houses that Boomers are seeking to sell.

To cultivate a new generation of home buyers who can take on a mortgage, it is imperative that they do not already have a mortgage-sized debt before that. But the higher education industry got to this generation before the mortgage industry could, and many members of this generation have already signed away the first several years of their earnings to servicing their student loans in a rapidly inflating bubble (chart from The Atlantic, click to enlarge), amounting to some $867 Billion in indebtedness that is yet to abate. It may be unfortunate that this upcoming generation was unavoidably destined to take on debt, and that it was only a question of whether the student loan industry or the mortgage industry yoked them in first. But it appears that student loans won the race to reach their prey, which is bad news for Boomers seeking to sell their homes in 2015-20.

On top of the student loan burden postponing their home purchases, there are more sinister cultural forces that are moving this upcoming generation towards apartments and condos, and away from the single-family homes that Boomers will seek to sell. The US legal system severely disincentivizes young men from family formation by subjecting them to preposterously unfair laws if they enter a modern marital contract, and while those who profit from this status quo have done their best to conceal the risks of marriage and family from young men, the anti-misandry sphere continues to expose the truth, particularly to these younger generations of men. Fewer young men are willing to take on the risk of entering such a lopsided contract.

In desperation, Boomers will turn to the last remaining source of new blood - skilled immigration. Skilled immigrants not only do not have student debt to the degree that American youths do, but are usually from countries that have not been ravaged by misandry. I am strongly in favor of increasing skilled, legal immigration and will go so far as to say America cannot prosper without it, but even here, Boomers are behind the curve, as by the time this bright idea gets favored, a new generation of skilled foreigners will be far less interested in coming to America than their predecessors in the 1990s and 2000s. The opportunities in India and China are much more than they were in the 1990s when America could attract the very best and brightest in the world. But by 2015, the immigrants America can attract will be diminished in quality and number. So financing their retirements on the backs of skilled immigrants as a substitute for a generation of Americans disincentivized from family formation is a scheme the Boomers will find to be too little, too late.

If selling their homes at a price that retains some of their home equity was important Baby Boomers, they should have pre-emptively blocked laws that would greatly inhibit family formation and the resultant purchases of single-family homes, among the next generation of Americans. Boomers let this tragedy happen right in front of them, and will pay for it with their home equity.

All Boomers Are Not Equal : Lest you think I am being harsh to Baby Boomers, there is another level of scrutiny here that cannot be exposed often enough. As I have established elsewhere, 70-80% of all government spending is a transfer from men to women, a default state almost every democracy will revert to over time, and this is especially true of entitlement programs. Since women live 5-7 years longer than men, their average post-65 lifespan is thus about twice as long as a man's. Add to this the fact that women use more healthcare per year than men anyway, and we get the heavily unidirectional transfer from men to women that is Medicare.

This is, of course, an opportunity for Boomer men to finally fight back. When it is considered acceptable for the mainstream media to say the lives of men are a burden when they have outlived their earning years, and Obamacare, with the power to ration healthcare along political lines, is already prepared to fund women's health at the expense of men's, don't think for a minute that the legislative bias will stop there. An additional surtax on men only, greater defunding of male health procedures, etc. are all being discussed. Perhaps this will finally be enough to provoke a reaction from men.

Conclusion : Overall, the fiscal cliff and non-cooperation of younger Americans and immigrants will bring great calamity to any Baby Boomers with a net worth under $2 Million. Only the Boomers wealthy enough to not be dependent on either entitlement programs or home equity will go unscathed, and, unless Boomer men start fighting for their rights, they will find that an entire apparatus has been built to minimize their access Social Security and Medicare that they have paid into. At the same time, despite an organized attempt to disenfranchise men, Boomer women will just not be able to extract more than they are already getting, since even the deepest wells of funding will be exhausted given the unprecedented number of women seeking to live off of the state. While the excess spending has been the work of Democrats, do not think for one minute that Republicans will cut spending even if they win every election they stand in.

Perhaps this event will be necessary in the process of dismantling many archaic and unjust structures.

Comments

This is right on our doorstep just as we are greatly weakened economically, yet there is very little discussion of it in the Republican presidential process. Awareness of the boomer retirement issue waxes and wanes seemingly randomly. All I know is that the last time it came up, with Paul Ryan's proposal for minor cuts (excluding those now over 55), there was a massive freak-out even though the proposed cuts weren't nearly enough to solve the problem.

Medicare is the biggest problem, which has risen 9% per year since 1980, compounded. At that rate, the federal government will have to spend $1.6 trillion in 2019. That's nearly half the current bloated, unsustainable budget. It doesn't even factor in the massive influx of boomers that will come over this time period.

Though medical costs should have been dealt with long ago, the earliest we can address this is the present. But, nobody is doing anything. The powerful rhetoric of "killing granny" by making cuts in Medicare or attempting to restore market functions to the healthcare market make it unlikely that intentional political solutions will be enacted. People won't believe the math that proves this inevitably can't work. Not until they see the car falling off the cliff or the mushroom cloud rising will they accept it. The failure has to bee seen to be believed, I guess.

Because some famous essays from 2+ years ago still generate 50% of my traffic :). I have 'perma-traffic' now.

But remember, unlike the high-frequency blogs, many of my articles are evergreen, and are fully relevant even 2, 3, or 5 years after they were written. There are 200 articles in the archives that you can dive into.

Just a comment on a tangentially related subject. I've given your article, "The Misandry Bubble," to a number of young American men and some older foreign ones. All of them have told me they were stunned by the clear exposition of things they had vaguely recognized but had not connected. One of them told me, "you literally changed my life with that article." He's a good guy and I think reading your article saved him from a bad marital mistake. Well done!

The problem that America has right now is that the "can do", help-your-neighbor-barn raising mindset that made America great has been erased by a national obsession to find the just the right place to lay the blame. And funny thing, it never seems to rest with the person who signs on to a mortgage for a bigger house was reasonably affordable; or with the brightest students, who took on hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt without doing the math to see how it might impact their future earnings potential should sunshine and lollipops not always light grace the path of life. We destroyed the marriage contract which had been honed, not over centuries, but over millenia (if not by human nature itself), and seem shocked there was an unintended consequence.

This is a really good article and it identifies the problem well. But the devil is in the details. Blame IS the problem, not the solution - but stripped of the teachings of their parents, the boomers and their children are clueless as to why. Snake salesmen have have been fleecing the gullible with promises of nirvana (for a small fee, of course) since Eve bit the apple. Until we work together, instead of spending our time looking for the just the right group of "others" to blame for the fact that we don't live in utopia, we are all lost.

At the back of the boomer generation (1960), I detest being lumped with such a wide demographic. I don't dispute the content of your article, but I do dispute every "Boomer" has benefited by year of their birthright, and the statistics for benefit are heavily skewed to the first decade 1946-1955 of the Boomers.

I can't tell you how many times I've been personally screwed in career, in position, in opportunity, and in fees and services that have benefited greatly people ten to fifteen years my senior now retiring, but not me. For instance, I was that "lucky" generation when public schools started their demise from envy of the world to war zones, and I graduated from college smack dab in the middle of Carter's wreck. At least I can somewhat sympathize with those graduating now, because 1981 was almost as ugly as 2008-2012.

I'm not looking for sympathy nor handout, but not once but twice, my social security retirement age has been bumped and I fully expect that to happen again and again. That rule doesn't apply to every Boomer and certainly not to those currently retiring now.

I feel far more affiliated with Generation X than the Baby Boomer demographic.

Becky you are so right. The article starts with Obama and the Democratic Senate expending the funds needed to fund Baby-Boomers. It was at that point that my "PARTISAN RADAR" went haywire. Do we not have a Republican House who might just as well be a Blockade to any progress. Points are well made but move forward. As the article summarizes, it still ends up being the 1% who will ride this out. So let me ask you then. If it always comes down to the 1% surviving unscathed... who's do you really think is calling the shots?

Tex is right. I was also born in 1960, came of age during the Carter malaise, and detest the Baby Boomers. All the Summer of Love and Woodstock, hippies and the counterculture, Vietnam protests and the Great Society stuff happened when I was in 3rd grade. Early boomers may get nostalgic for that crap, but it just scared me at the time and revolts me now.

Those of us born from 1958 to 1965 are Tweeners. Here's a song chorus that defines our little cohort.

We were too young to be hippies
Missed out on The Love
Came into our teens in the late seventies
In the Summer of the Drugs

Becky you are so right. The article starts with Obama and the Democratic Senate expending the funds needed to fund Baby-Boomers. It was at that point that my "PARTISAN RADAR" went haywire. Do we not have a Republican House who might just as well be a Blockade to any progress.

No, littlefatguy, we did not have a Republican House in either 2009 or 2010 when the porkdoggles of stimulus and Obamacare were rammed through. The House did not effectively become Republican-majority until January 2011.

All the federal debt that was incurred in 2009 and 2010 belongs to Obama and the Democrats, lock, stock, and barrel.

I am right there with Tex and mhowell. I'm a Tweener (born in 1959) and have always felt like economically I've been whipped around at the end of the Baby Boomer tail. So like Tex, I don't argue with the gist of this article, I just hate being lumped into the "Boomers got it all and we younger folks get nothing" meme. My younger co-workers complain that there won't be any Social Security left for them and I just answer that I never expected there will be any for me either so I planned my retirement based on not having Social Security. I really am amazed that even the possibility is still there. Still I think means testing will be added in the next decade (I'd prefer raising the age limit) and because I've saved, I won't be eligible. Luckily my parents taught me good habits -- I still remember being mad as h--- when my dad made me save half of every paycheck I made from my part-time job but I thank him now!

It is ridiculous to lump people into the Baby Boomer age demographic and then procede to treat them like they are a homogenous group for other attributes. Sure, there are lots of people in their 60s who have retired and are collecting Social Security they paid into for 45 years with the promise that they would get something back when they needed it. Perhaps they were gullible, but they were working within the system they were given.
Some of this generation anticipated the demise of the welfare state, practiced frugality, saved, invested in arable land, and will have a fine lifestyle in retirement with a year-round vegetable garden in a low tax state without 2M in assets. What goes around, comes around. Our parents talked depression and some of us listened.

What strikes me as odd is that, hearing that "SS will not be there for you" (born 71, so not a Tweener), and the so-called horrific levels of saving I'd have to do as I grew up and worked....

...amount to more or less what any responsible adult should have been trying to save anyway. I'm behind that b/c of taking the "pass less taken" in terms of jobs and career, but it's amazing how little things like only owning one car rather than two, not paying to have my intelligence insulted on cable t.v., etcetera, makes it much easier to save than I was told it'd be.

I would be curious how you arrived at your $2MM figure? Is that per individual or a married couple, for instance?

Being I'm 51, my wife and I have saved for the better part of 30 years in 401Ks. What used to seem a great deal of money, doesn't sound so grand anymore.

And I have often contemplated the goal to shoot for. It becomes a plan of futility, because for all intents and purposes, we are now going on 13 years of "dead money", which is actually worth about 60% in 1999 dollars when inflation taken into account.

About the only really good advice I could give to the younger folk, my two daughters included, is don't owe anybody anything, because that is the only variable you can control.

Don't have $2 million, am a 60 year old male, and don't intend to suffer, at least until I lose my health or my mind. Got a law degree last year, passed the bar, have been working in a small but well established law firm for the last 9 years, first as a paralegal (career change at 51) and now as an attorney. Plan to keep on working to age 80+ or until my health gives out. Figure I have another 15 years of full-time work left in me, then I'll work part time. There are alternatives to mooching off the system.

Healthcare is the big enchilada. I am part of the beast. A bloated corrupt beast woven through all the components of what is referred to as the delivery system. inpatient, outpatient, diagnostic tests, drugs to treat, service provders from generalissimo to rank peasant, and the financing/management system all have a preceptual guideline to make more money than deliver effective and frugal service in a world that must say enough to this bloated and spoiled monster. too many of us have personal stakes in the business and a natural conflict of interest arises when a decision involves best practice (and this best practice must always include resources available).

Short of the necessity that impending financial implosion may create (and the giant chop chop method) a core group of true citizens in each of the various component in the "delivery system" will have to adopt a different than is current practic. And here the free market and bought out congressional process must be overcome. Until a corrupt process that does not reward effective delivery, the free market will not contribute to the change that will certainly arrive.

Ultimately I enjoy my part in the system as a nurse practitioner. As a primary care, I can treat a wide array of illness and begin to diminish the de riguer employment of specialists. A good day to all.

This is an issue of demographics and rising health care costs, not greed or selfishness of Boomers. Boomers did not create Social Security of Medicare. We just paid into them and had the excess stolen and used by politians to buy votes from special interest groups, and then retirement accounts wiped out.
Most Boomers already know we're not going to get the benefits our parents and grandparents received. Unless something magical happens, it just isn't possible. We'll work as long as we can, but most employers -- especially younger ones -- don't want older workers, and the human body has a nasty way of thwarting the best of intentions. There's a world of difference between 50 and 65, as many a formerly robust, ambitious man has discovered.
America can survive a demographic crises if we work together -- but it's still true that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." Resist the urge to blame a whole generation just because there are a lot of them. I was born in 1955. The idea that I've caused the financial problems of someone born in 1965 is crazy on it's face.

Ummm, you neglected to mention that women -because they DO live longer- receive lower SocSec benefits per month; and even women who worked for 40+ years were probably paid less than similarly situated men. So they've got a smaller pot of money that benefits are calculated on, with payments spread out over a longer time. Aged women are the most likely to live in poverty. "Here, Mittens: a bite of tuna for you, a bite of tuna for me..."

It's scary to think of being old, no longer able to work, and trying to scrape by on what the Government deigns to give you (especially with the bogus inflation/ cost-of-living adjustments). As someone noted above, 401(k) earnings have been stalled for years; the "historical 8-10% earnings of the stock market" somehow stopped happening once the 401(k) program was established. If, as looks likely, Our Beneficent Leaders are going to try inflating our way out of this sour economy, old people on fixed incomes will suffer greatly. I see no good outcome for anybody here...

nd even women who worked for 40+ years were probably paid less than similarly situated men.

Garbage. Women are actually paid MORE than men relative to output produced. The 'pay gap' lie is exactly that, a tired old lie that advertises the utterer's economic illiteracy. That you consider that to be a 'fact' (let alone expect others to) is embarrassing.

Aged women are the most likely to live in poverty

Only because they made poor life choices like divorce a perfectly decent man, or have no children in favor of a life of shopping and clubbing.

I guess technically I'm a "pre-Boomer" - 1944 - but I'm not feeling like the Boomers got it all. I suspect many of them - at least the non "progressive" ones - aren't much different than me: still working, expect to continue to work until at least age 70 fulltime, may never be able to fully retire. The issues in this article - failed promises and reckless fiscal endangerment - apply to us all. And mis-boomer-y won't make it any easier.

To be clear, I want Boomer men to start fighting back against the major apparatus that is being organized to disenfranchise them (above and beyond the fact that 70-80% of govt. spending is already a transfer from men to women).

Obamacare is a very effective way to make sure Medicare predominantly covers women at the expense of men.

In other words, even if all Boomers get nothing, men are not losing much relative to where they are now. The losses fall on Boomer women.

Why are medical costs growing at a rate consistently faster than the rate of inflation? Because we have created a system that builds cost inflation into it - consumers are intentionally seperated from payers. You cannot financially sustain a partially privatized benefit system. You either need to switch to full goverment control which gets you poor quality but at low cost, or a pure private system that delivers high quality at low cost. Our current system delivers high quality at high cost.

Note that the same is now happening for school costs. For exactly the same reasons.

Our only viable soltuion, as I see it, is to push medical care a non-profit enterpise with endowments from the goverment.

So not only will the younger generation not be able to count on SS, but present boomers cant either. Any person in the US now who is not concerned about massive gov overspending, and the way Obama and the dem senate have made it much worse, and continue to block any attempt to fix it, is a fool, drinking the socialist dem Kool Aid.

This boomer has saved independently so I can live without SS. but even I am not safe, because the way the fed is inflating our money supply, hyperinflation is coming, and my savngs may be inflated away to nothing. I probably should have bought a lot of gold. I am not sure the repubs will cut spending either, but it is quite certain the current dems will not. I will choose the repubs for now, to give them a chance. If they win, and still wont cut spending back to 18% of GDP, or less, then it will be time to look for 3rd parties.

i have to say GK, this is still one of the best blogs on the net. while i do wish for a higher volume, the quality is second to none. i still vividly remember reading the misandry bubble two years ago and seeing all of those pieces suddenly fall into place.

It seems to me that there is a growing shame in being male. The world does not value us. It is not my fault what I was born as, why should I be punished for it? I don't want to live in a world (I am 36) where I must pay for reduction in male-related healthcare.

Marriage has declined as now more young Americans adults are unmarried than married, preferring to live together with women as unmarrieds. Women as single heads of families has substantially grown and are often unable to afford a mortgage. All of this and more decrease the ability and desire of families to purchase a single family home which equals a result of 'lower demand'. Currently, Core Logic estimates the shadow inventory of single family homes as stagnant at about 1.6 million single family homes. So, currently I agree with GK on the prospect for home equity not likely to be a good or increasing source for Boomers to fund their retirement lifestyles.

The Obama cave in on tariffs for China's solar panels which yesterday came in at about 3% to 5% tariffs was met with happiness by exporters of all types because it is 'too late and too small' to squash foriegn manufacturing products to export into America. The corresponding result is that average American men are unlikely to see additional significant gains in job manufacturing products inside America. The prospect of college degrees dominated by women and the lack of a viable blue collar factory job makes the likelihood of men earning more than women a lot lower most likely causing men to be less likely to become 'marriageable material' and remain 'broke ass' guy suitable for dating only and not marrying. This increases the chances that fewer 2 good income families will be available to afford mortgages and consequently decreases the 'demand' side for single family houses.

Debt that can not be paid will not be paid. Someday, the market will recognized that the debt load has become too high for the ability of Americans to pay resulting in decline of the Dollar. When that happens, current debt obligations will be written off just as happened this month in Greece.

America is a nation of immigrants ... or else Indians/Native Americans would be the group dominating our population.

Real estate demand in part depends on population growth, hence home equity for use as a financial reservior, resource depends in part on population growth ... immigration is one portion of the increase in America's population.

Asians replace Mexicans as fastest growing US group ... defining Asia broadly to include China, India, Phillipines, more ...

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March 23, 2012

Asians Are Fastest Growing Racial Group in U.S.

"Asians are the fastest growing race group in the United States, reflecting a surge in immigration from the entire region over a decade, the US Census Bureau said Tuesday.

As part of an ongoing analysis of the data it reaped from its 2010 census, the federal agency said those who identified themselves as Asian alone, and not mixed race, grew by 43.3 percent from a decade earlier.

That was more than four times faster than the rate of growth for the overall US population, which grew 9.7 percent in the same period to 308,745,538. Some 14.7 million people, or 4.8 percent of the total population, identified themselves as Asian alone. Another 2.6 million, or 0.9 percent, said they were Asian in combination with another race group, most commonly white.

"Net international migration is the biggest component of the change in the Asian population," Elizabeth Hoeffel, a statistician in the Census Bureau's population division, told reporters in a conference call.

For statistical purposes, the United States defines an Asian as someone "having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent."

Those who identified themselves as either Asian alone or Asian mixed with another race grew by at least 30 percent in all states except Hawaii, where they already made up a majority of the population."
Please click here to read the complete post. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/asians-fastest-....-195956005.html

"... States with the fastest rate of Asian growth were Nevada (116 percent), Arizona (95 percent) and North Carolina (85 percent).

New York had the biggest Asian population with 1.1 million, followed by Los Angeles (484,000) and San Jose, California (327,000).

Chinese was the largest of all Asian groups (four million, including 700,000 who identified as mixed race), followed by Filipinos (3.4 million) and Asian Indians (3.2 million).

Our daughter and son-in-law live in Santa Cruz and they won't ever be able to afrofd a home there either. However, they have a child and want to have another, even in their small condo. They just choose not to have a lot of stuff because they have no room for it.My husband is retiring in a year and we plan to downsize from our current 2400 sq ft home. We can't find a small home in a nice area where we live though, and we've been looking. All the nicer neighborhoods have houses as large as ours or larger. Where we live (N TX) builders need to learn to cater to people wanting smaller homes.We decided to build our own home on some lake property we have. My goal is about 1500 square feet. I think you're right that for boomers, it's been there, done that as far as having large homes.In N TX, housing prices are much more reasonable than most areas. Two of our daughters and families have fairly large houses and even our 25 year old single daughter owns her own home.

The model for not paying pensions was set by Commie's that simply tricked the working poor Russians throwing sand in the eyes of the masses with a promise of a workers paradise while skimming off the best for their estates 'dachas' without setting aside money to fund the USSR's pensions. The politiboro lived large and fat while the gulags filled with dissendents daring to point out that their workers paradise barely produced toilet paper sufficient to avoid waiting 8 hours in line at the people's stores. When the game ended the name of the system changed but the same KGB/military thugs fooled the Russian again by simply changing the names of the country and faking a new, improved political system while imposing the same result of Putin and Oligarch cronies skimming off the best for their estates 'dachas' without setting aside money to fund the Russian's pensions and other benefits just as the Commies' did.

America appears likely to follow that model in a similar fashion. The pensions which now can not survive their fake 7.5% annual investment assumptions will end up not surviving to pay pensions to the workers that believed in them. The State of Illinios, home to liberal Democratic politics well established as corrupt Chicago politics style is not paying into its pensions which can not survive. The pensions will not be paid just as the Commies did not pay. In my opinion, Democrats will make use of the coming crisis by my predictions most likely in 2016 and/or beyond to "not waste a Crisis" resulting in declaring the State Bankrupt to void public pensions just as commonly approved by the American courts for bankrupt Cities today. This model set by the Commies but revised to conform to Obama's model for Green Jobs manufacturing will become common place in 2016 and/or Beyond. Currently, the Europeans have 'adjusted' active pensions for Greeks soon to be followed in my opinion in 2013 and/or beyond in Spain, then Italy, etc. Public workers accross the world who trusted liberal politicans will repeatedly be disappointed with failed pensions as were done in the USSR.

I continue to expect 2013 to feature Europe's Crisis with America's crisis to follow after Europe's crisis when tax and budgets put into place by Americans in 2013 impact in 2014 and/or beyond resulting in another economic leg down leading to a new bottom most likely in 2016 and/or beyond featuring governmental bankruptcies and public pension bankruptcies across America.

The biggest publicly American funded pension with benefits will fail ... Social Security and Medicare.

Longer term the fundamental pensions problem remains underfunding by STATES, CITIES, LOCAL AGENCIES which refuse to increase taxes to meet their promised contributions:

==================================================

"... Muni Watch:

April 10 – Financial Times (Hal Weitzman and Nicole Bullock): “US states are increasingly being blocked from changing public employees’ retirement benefits as the fight over shoring up chronically underfunded public pension systems moves from state legislatures to the courts. While some states have successfully altered terms for future employees, plans to force all current public workers to contribute more to state pensions have been ruled unconstitutional in Florida, Arizona and New Hampshire in recent weeks, a significant victory for public sector employee unions. Other states are expected to face similar legal battles as they plan to close large holes in their public pension funds by redrawing benefits. US state and local pensions could face a shortfall of as much as $4.4tn, up from $3.1tn in 2009, according to some estimates."

April 10 – Bloomberg (Josh Barro): “Rod Blagojevich is in prison. But the worst things the former governor did to Illinois weren’t even illegal. This month, the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois made a dire announcement to its members. TRS, which covers most public-school teachers in Illinois outside Chicago and has more than 360,000 members, said the following: ‘If the General Assembly does not continue to provide all of the funding called for in state law, calculations done by TRS actuaries show that the System could become insolvent as soon as 2030. Preventing insolvency may include significant changes for TRS -- new revenues must be generated and if they are not benefits may have to be reduced.’”

April 9 – Bloomberg (Amanda J. Crawford): “Las Vegas’s credit outlook was lowered to negative from stable on $561.2 million of debt by Fitch Ratings, which cited budget deficits and the lingering housing crisis.”

California Watch:

April 10 – Financial Times (Dan McCrum): “California must increase contributions to teachers’ pensions by more than half to close a $64.5bn funding hole in the country’s second largest public retirement system, according to the actuarial valuation to be presented to the board of Calstrs this week. The $144bn of assets managed by the California State Teachers’ Retirement System covered only 69% of future liabilities at the end of June 2011, a drop of 2 percentage points from the year before. In a sign of the problems faced by many public pension plans, the hole is too large to be covered by better investment performance.”

April 9 – Bloomberg (James Nash): “The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the second-biggest U.S. public pension, said the gap between its assets and projected obligations rose $8.5 billion as investment gains failed to cover earlier losses. The unfunded liability climbed 13% to $64.5 billion as of June 30… The system had about 69% of assets needed to cover promises to current and future retirees at the end of fiscal 2011, down from about 71% a year earlier.”

I don't think Boomer men will fight back. They have become habituated to lying down whenever assaulted. This has become their habit. This has become their identity. They have been meekly taking abuse for all their lives. They are set in their ways. They will not rebel. They will not fight back. They will do what they have always done. This time they will roll over and die. It is easier to die rather than fight back. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks.

It is the younger generation of men who are fighting back by not marrying and treating women as cum dumpsters. They will default on their student loans and leave the U.S. to move to Asia to teach English or whatever else leaving the boomers in poverty

America remains stable & able to sustain the current status quo with its Bread & Circuses which I predict will sustain for more than 1 year and perhaps many years but most likely will not sustain the status quo very well in 2014 and/or beyond.

The Circus or activities for entertainment and careers first.

Contrast America's women to middle east women:

America's women entertain with online Facebook, fashion, career ambitions within the existing businesses, government employers and corporate or professional ladders channel anger and rebellion into starting their own businesses or raising children.

While, middle east women have large numbers of children that the middle east women promote jihad or the middle east fashions of colored burkas, using cell phones to coordinate the Arab Spring without much expectation of financial or personal independence.

American men entertain with online porn, fantascy sports teams, TV's ultimate circus remains the Super Bowl for older generations and worldwide internet games such as World of War Craft.

Middle east men entertain with limited access to soccer, censored internet, religious activities, fathering large families.

Now the Bread, 2nd in the Bread and Circuses

Middle east families trade higher percentages of their labor and wealth to purchase food with rarely effective social nets to support their poorest and socially outcast.

American families currently trade a record lowest percentage of their labor and wealth to purchase food with commonly effective social nets that make our poorest and socially outcast the fattest in the world.

Compare America to Europe's Bread and Circuses.

Mostly the contrast is closer than contrasting to the Arab Spring region.

Europe has riots motivated by poverty and declining lifestyles as the PIGS take away government paid benefits most months while riots in America mostly result from rowdy crowds after sporting events. America on rare ocassion has racial or ethnic large protests most often peaceful about injustices such as the 'white Mexican' Zimmerman killing the black Treyvor Martin with most activities channelled into the peaceful legal and political system.

Europe has frequent changes of rulers among the PIGS rulers as political hostility against the incumbents offers a near term future change away from elections towards rebellions within 2 years.

America has well established time tables for changes of rulers without offering the likelihood of a near term future change away from elections towards rebellions within 2 years ... the future offers rebellions that now are not a popular concept nor anticipated for years.

War and revolution serve the US status quo as diversions, circuses, entertain, political debate and employment for the jobless in the US Armed Services within the American sphere of Bread & Circuses rather than a source of political change such as the riots in Greece, Spain or Arab Spring. Sending US gang members and angry young men off to war overseas acts as a relief valve to prevent a source of American political violent revolts. Gangs remain a portion of the American Bread and Circuses providing music, fashions, employment and aspirations for the poor angry young. Even if the women(Yes, there now are female gangs or female members of male dominate gangs) and/or men lack adequate physical qualities to be gang members, they become gang wannabes by pretending to be associated with gangs.

Social Security faces additional costs: millions take disability SSI who were not accounted for in the assumptions

11% jobless: SSI hides 5M Obama dropped workers

SSI disability remains as part of the Social Security system ... ballooning

Why?

Jobless, hopeless men with pains, injuries quit looking for work.
They dropped out into lifetime benefits.
Soaring #'s.

"... so far this year climbs to 539,000 ... more than 5 million workers and their families have enrolled in the disability program since Obama took office ... In fact, had the labor force participation rate had stayed where it was in June 2009, the unemployment rate would be around 11%.... the mass exodus of workers who can't find a job onto the disability rolls poses a long-term risk to the economy, since once enrolled, these workers almost never return to the active workforce. "

Impact: funds will be bankrupt sooner...run out of money

=============================

Labor Force Shrinks As Jobless Swell Disability Ranks

The civilian labor force shrank in April by 342,000 workers, and remains below where it stood when the economic recovery started 34 months ago, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Had the labor force not declined, unemployment would have been 8.3% in April, instead of the 8.1% reported.

That same month, more than 225,000 workers applied for Social Security disability benefits, and nearly 90,000 were enrolled, according to new data from the Social Security Administration.

Compared with June 2009, the month the economic recovery officially started, the labor force has shrunk by 365,000, a trend that has never occurred in any post World War 11 recovery. Those saw the labor force climb by the millions by this point in their recoveries, even as unemployment rates were driven down.

The decline in the workforce combined with the growing population has pushed the labor force participation rate — which compares those working or looking for a job the working age population — to 63.6% in April. That's down from 65.7% in mid-2009, and is the lowest it's been since 1981.

Economists note that the shrinking labor force has masked the true size of the unemployment problem, since people who quit looking for a job are no longer counted as unemployed.

In fact, had the labor force participation rate had stayed where it was in June 2009, the unemployment rate would be around 11%.

Many of those who've quit looking have instead signed up for disability benefits.

So far this year, nearly 1 million workers have applied to get on the disability program. According to the Social Security Administration, more than a third will eventually be enrolled in the program.

Almost 90,000 workers enrolled the program in April, pushing the total for new enrollees over 333,000 in the first four months of the year.

If you add in spouses and dependents, the number of beneficiaries added to the program so far this year climbs to 539,000.

As IBD reported recently, more than 5 million workers and their families have enrolled in the disability program since Obama took office.

A report last fall from the Obama administration's economic advisers warns that the mass exodus of workers who can't find a job onto the disability rolls poses a long-term risk to the economy, since once enrolled, these workers almost never return to the active workforce. This can, the report said, result "in a loss to society of the economic contribution those workers could have made."http://news.investors.com/article/610306....ility-grows.htm

Buyers for the Boomers' homes will be first home-owners? Hardly likely. Most Boomers' homes will their second, third or fourth, and only crazy borrowing could see that accumulated equity be replaced by debt, which won't happen. No, Gen X are buying and will continue to buy Boomers' homes. Sorry, nice thesis but its foundation is flawed.

Boomers have too many homes to sell, and there are too few new buyers for them. There are not enough Gen X people, and of those few, many have too much student loan debt, or otherwise are single people who would not buy a family home.

You ignored the simple points of the article. Wishing for an outcome you want does not make it so.

It is hard to argue with the underlying analysis of this article, but I find the tone extremely distasteful. "Harvesting" is hardly what boomers will be doing: the rich few will never get back what they paid into SS&M, and the many poor will desperately need whatever they can get from it. (Boomers are not all nor even mostly rich people by a long shot.)

Most of the anti-boomer rants you see are just the ancient and silly young-resenting-the-old whining carried to this new internet medium. What the young often don't seem to realize is that (if they are lucky) one day they will be old too.

The major qualitative difference for millennials that I see now compared to when I was coming out of college (noted in the article) is the burden of student loans. But boomers are hardly the only or even the primary cause of the insane tuition inflation we've seen over the last generation. When I was young, the advice was to go to the best college you could get into and figure out how to pay for it later. I can't give that advice to young people any more. Now I think they are better off going where they have a generous financial package and later getting into the best graduate program that will pay them. And if they can't find one that will pay them, maybe they should reconsider their career options. (Professional schools somewhat excepted.)

I think the Gen Y folks actually had it better than the boomers. People coming out of college in the mid-90s could count on instant access to $50k+ salaries (in 90s dollars), and that no doubt contributed to tuition-inflation. My first career-level job payed $12k, which even accounting for inflation wasn't anywhere near that. It really is silly to focus all the ire on the boomers.

As real wealth and income adjusted for government or worse John Williams & Barts inflation without lies...'a regular depresssion'.

Median Income of individuals, per capita

Individuals are more important today than families...more Americans are unmarried today than married. Individuals' declining median income means fewer will be able to buy a single family house ... a vicious downward continuous fall in housing prices seems most likely.

Families today with children almost always are too poor to buy a house...single, unmarried mothers or ... remarried to a man already paying child support/alimony leave little money for mortage payments.

Divorces for boomers has skyrocketed as adult children leave their families ... wives are done 'taking care of men'

Take away the house, and Americans have little wealth. Median household net worth was $66,740 in 2010, according to the Census Bureau, but falls to just $15,000 if home equity is excluded. Here is median household net worth excluding home equity by age of householder...

TFH,
as you know I have called for older men, my generation (48) and my fathers generation (73), to stand up and be counted in establishing new courts and defending all from the criminal abuse of women and the criminal abuse of the guvment via women.

The men of these two generations have FAILED MISERABLY to meet the challenges of the day. So in my new book I am telling the young men from 16 to 30 just how the older generation of men have betrayed them. Those older men expect younger men to accept the slavery of the tax burden the older men created by allowing their women to run amok on social welfare.

I now encourage younger men to rebel. To refuse to pay the taxes the older generation demands. To rescind their consent to be governed. To live in freedom. To build their own businesses. It is all covered in my new book The Truth Be Told.

You aren't alone, lots of Late Boomers feel just like you do. We've had a rocky road for all of our travels and we must not dsepair. We are the most powerful group around today. Let's do it. If we can only figure out what it is. Hope you write more on this topic!

Renee,Love it! Baby Boomers unite! Woo Hoo for those of us who have survived half a cerntuy of living. If anyone has any remorse or excuses hanging around after watching your video, they just don't get it. You're absolutely right, this is an awesome opportunity to enjoy a whole new set of chapters in our life books.Wonderful message,Val Val Wilcox s last [type] ..[] Reply:March 29th, 2011 at 7:10 pm, Thanks Val. I laugh at myself when I see this video. I kind of had an attitude didn't I? I appreciate your comments and visit![]

Boomers hitched their bandwagon onto their parents' generation, & the structures it created for the future, whilst at the same time rejecting everything their parents stood for. Boomers' parents, the Greatest Generation, rightly rewarded themselves for defeating the Nazis, but now that post-war dividend has been squandered by the Boomers, most noticeably by Bush Jr & his tax-cuts for the rich & his wars in the Middle East, which turned Clinton's surpluses to deficits.

Subsequent generations, Xers & Millennials, are becoming more aware of the wealth grab that the Boomers have made & want to continue to make but are numerous enough to deny them the presidential power to do so, & instead can begin to force Boomers to live in the same manner now as future generations will have no choice but to live.

It's unfortunate for those Boomers who worked hard & paid into the system to be hung out to dry by its evisceration by way of tax cuts to the wealthy, & who assumed they would be looked after, but they are simply reaping what they have sown from that generation's general hubris & myopia. There is also some hope that those Boomers (& the corporatism they enabled, e.g., indenturing college grads for their degrees) who benefited disproportionally, will be subject to some form of claw-back so that they pay a fair share to benefit the future.

Boomers hitched their bandwagon onto their parents' generation, & the structures it created for the future, whilst at the same time rejecting everything their parents stood for.

This is correct.

most noticeably by Bush Jr & his tax-cuts for the rich & his wars in the Middle East, which turned Clinton's surpluses to deficits.

This is completely wrong. Obama's deficit spending is several times higher than Bush's. That is very easy to look up.

When Bush left office, the debt was 68% of GDP, vs. 104% now, 4 years later.

It's unfortunate for those Boomers who worked hard & paid into the system to be hung out to dry by its evisceration by way of tax cuts to the wealthy,

Another huge misconception. If you really want to tax the 'wealthy', then tax wealth, not income. Oh, but that would hit the lefty billionaires the hardest, as they have wealth, on which they earn only passive income.

90 percent of baby boomer men are manginas. They are the key factor in support of feminism.

And due to feminism, many young men (Last statistic I saw was that 28 percent of young men are not interested in marriage) will not get married, will not buy a house, and thus the baby boomers are going to be left with all of that debt they hoped to sell off.

Baby boomers were the most selfish generation to ever exist. And they are also extremely stupid to not have forseen the consequences to their actions.

Way I see it, feminism will not end until both baby boomer men and women are dead and gone, as the majority of support for feminism comes from their generation.

A lot of workers wouldn't be unemployed if new federal labor laws were enacted to protect them from unscrupulous employers, who practice fraudulent lay offs to reduce their employee's wages up to as much as 50 percent. The difference between wealthy and lower middle class workers is that lower middle class workers aren't scheming ways to keep wages lower for the wealthy class of working people.

Democrat & Republican politicians have failed the working class by rescinding or amending employee state labor laws which allows BIG Businesses to greatly benefit from reduced employee protection due the working class for medical, sick, vacation, holidays and wage benefits. Big Businesses will eliminate a department by reclassifying it with a new department or job title and then lay off to force an already member of their company to reapply for the same job with a falsely claimed lay off, this is fraudulent. Politicians from both parties can enact laws to protect employee(s) from an illegally unjustified lay off. Shame on both political parties for allowing BIG Businesses to reduce wages in this manner. The term lay off should only apply if the job NO longer exists and not by reclassification of a department or job title.

Hence, these false lay off should have politicians up in arms and cause them to enact a new federal labor law making it FRAUDULENT, a CRIME and ILLEGAL to falsely eliminate a job or department title and offer a reclassified job as the same job, even if they add one or several new job requirements, the job is overall the same. Our labor laws sorely need upgrading and a new federal labor law enacted to PROTECT every employee from fraudulent lay offs practiced by unscrupulous employers. In addition to this new labor law... Employers can not require employee(s) to reapply for the 'same work' reclassified job or re-titled department, since they are already an employee of said company. Companies must offer them the new job without lay offs or lost scaled wages earned by a seniority employee(s). There is something seriously wrong with our politicians... politicians who side with unscrupulous big businesses that practice laying off their employees falsely without just cause. Politicians have become as corrupt as their unscrupulous business friends, who have perfected this fraudulent wage reduction method against NON-UNION employees.

State & town politicians CAN NOT themselves reclassify their Police, Fire & Public Works Department or its job titles and lay off their employees only later to inform them they have to reapply for the same jobs under a new department or job title. Let's see... Park Dept employees receiving $23 dollars per hour to sit on a riding mower and cut Park grass all day long, Police receive $48 plus dollars per hour to direct traffic at a road job on their off duty time and fire fighters earning $32 dollars per hour lounging around in the fire house while waiting for a fire call. I personally know a few fire fighters who work the night shift and then play 18 holes of golf the next morning because they got a good nights sleep while on duty. There is no equal or FAIR JUSTICE from our political system to penalize employers, because a fair employee labor law would penalize (themselves) state & town governments. Just ask Detroit's politicians were all the money went. Tax rates continue to go higher for the lower middle & poor workers. Meanwhile, BIG Businesses continue to perfect their employee wage reduction method. Shame on corrupt politicians who have allowed BIG Business to conduct themselves in this shameful wage reduction method.

Disability will be broke by the end of this decade. There is an unspoken understanding in many USA localities, to go easy on disability applicants who are uneducated and over 45-50.

Medicare will be broke by 2025. The only solution will be to open VA hospitals to everyone on Medicare. Doctors in VA hospitals are on annual salaries. Senior citizens desiring a better quality of health care will have to pay for it privately.

Social Security will be broke by 2035. A simple step that would alleviate this would be to make Old Age benefits fully taxable. The wage cap on the FICA tax will have to be raised to at least 200K.

The seeds of the next mortgage industry crisis have been planted. The FHA insures mortgages with as little as 3.5% down.

Student Loans
This is a looming crisis, but does not adversely impact the Baby Boomers. Tertiary education is far too expensive. College professors are overpaid and underworked (I know, because I am one). Too many support staff. Exploding bureaucratic burdens.

Financial Security
I agree that financial security in old age requires owning a home and at least 1M in financial assets. Adults who work IRAs and 401ks to the max should accumulate at least 500K over a 40 year working life. About 15% of older baby boomers are in this happy situation. But a great many are not, especially elderly singles.
www.nber.org/papers/w17536.pdf‎

Few people appreciate that changes to USA income tax laws made in 2003, combined with the fact that dividend yields on USA equities are averaging about 1.8-1.9%, mean that for a married couple whose income consists entirely of dividends, the dividends on up to about 5M of stock mutual funds are essentially exempt from Federal income tax. The general run of SS benefits reduce this 5M to about 4M. The moral is save for retirement by buying stock mutual funds.